An Ode to the All-Consuming, Reckless Power of True Love
When the subject turns to the sublime purity of American roots music, to the place where bluegrass, country, and folk intersect in perfect, aching harmony, one name is mentioned with almost reverential awe: Alison Krauss. Her voice, at once impossibly fragile and powerfully resonant, is a rare instrument, capable of distilling complex human emotion into a single, crystalline note. Few songs in her remarkable catalog capture the intoxicating peril of devotion quite like “That Kind of Love.”
This masterful track is found on Alison Krauss’s third solo studio album, the deeply contemplative 1999 release, Forget About It. While the album’s lead singles like the title track and “Stay” saw some chart action (the latter reaching Number 28 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart), “That Kind of Love” was a deep cut that quietly settled into the hearts of listeners. It found a unique cultural life of its own by being featured on the soundtrack of the hit TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a testament to its dramatic, emotional gravity that transcended its acoustic roots. The album, Forget About It, itself was a critical success, peaking at Number 5 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and Number 60 on the all-genre Billboard 200, solidifying Krauss’s place as an artist who could cross over without compromising her essential sound.
The song was co-written by the formidable duo of Michael McDonald and Pat Bergeson, but when filtered through Krauss’s delicate sensibility, it transforms into a devastating meditation on the price of absolute devotion. The lyrics paint a vivid picture of a love that is less a choice and more a force of nature—a love so intense it overrides logic, wisdom, and even self-preservation. It speaks of a kind of relationship where the heart “rules the mind,” where “the going gets rough,” and pride inevitably “takes the fall.”
For the older reader, for anyone who has lived long enough to experience a love that was both exquisite and entirely wrecking, the meaning of “That Kind of Love” is instantly, unforgettably clear. It’s the kind of love you warned your children about, the passion that makes a mockery of all your carefully constructed walls and life plans. The lines, “I can’t help feeling like a fool / Since I lost that place inside / Where my heart knew its way / And my soul was ever wise,” are a gut-punch of recognition. They articulate the moment we realize we have willingly traded all our hard-won common sense for the sheer, terrifying thrill of connection.
The arrangement on the album is a marvel of spacious, hushed production, allowing Krauss’s ethereal soprano to float above a subtly sophisticated blend of bluegrass instrumentation and adult contemporary polish. The song doesn’t roar; it whispers, but its message is deafeningly profound. It reminds us that there is a deep, almost spiritual longing in the human heart that can only be satisfied by a love so complete it strips you bare. It’s the kind of song you put on late at night, when the house is quiet and the memories are loudest, a poignant soundtrack to every reckless, wonderful choice we ever made in the name of love. The beauty of the music is the comfort that comes from knowing we were not, and are not, alone in chasing that wild, dangerous, and utterly necessary “That Kind of Love.”